Bring on the Papadum Chips! Trader Joe’s in Talks for Sixth Avenue Spot

Ever since Trader Joe’s opened its first New York City store on 14th Street in 2006, the act of shopping for organic frozen raspberries and dark-chocolate-covered almonds has come to resemble less a civilized shopping experience and more a death match between grimacing bobos wielding narrow metal shopping carts.

Trader Joe’s is in discussions to open another low-priced, high-quality food store, complete with Hawaiian-shirt-wearing clerks, at the Mattel Building at 675 Sixth Avenue, between 21st and 22nd streets, according to industry sources. That’s just 11 blocks away from the original New York Trader Joe’s, between Irving Place and Third Avenue. And it might just mean that the shopping-while-somehow-keeping-one’s-place-in-line phenomenon will be replaced by a more laid-back experience.